Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. At the last minute, I snuck up to spend a few days with my folks. I sprained my wrist (or, rather, another player sprained it for me) just before heading north, so between that and the heat, I was less helpful than I’d hoped to be, but we got the deck swept and the screen door on, and I brought fans up from the basement when their central a/c bit the dust. All in all, we had a nice, low-key visit, eating tasty meals and drinking strawberry daiquiris, chatting and listening to music and watching Barbie.

2. Violent thunderstorms were predicted for D.C. the afternoon I headed home, and even before we left Connecticut, they were announcing a barrage of canceled flights. But it was still dry when we landed, so I was able to get off in Foggy Bottom to hit the farmers market and the library on my walk home. Rudi came down to meet me and help with the bags, which I appreciated tremendously. The skies opened up not long after we made it home, and I was able to enjoy the very loud thunder from my sofa. (It didn’t hurt that it also postponed the volleyball game I was going to have to watch from the sideline.)

3. The showing of Clueless at our local park was canceled *again* tonight due to the forecast and the mud, so I switched up my evening itinerary and headed to Fort Reno to catch the second concert of the season. The last band of the night, Soroche, was particularly fun.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

I’m still a little behind in reviewing books, but let’s be honest: none of us thought I was going to be this up-to-date, given I usually make it a month or so before giving up on posting reviews.

Anyway.

I finished five books in May:

Kills Well with Others by Deanna Raybourn

In this follow-up to Killers of a Certain Age, the quartet of retired women assassins return. In this story, there is a mole in the secret agency they worked for, which leads to a former colleague being murdered and a clue being left that points to one of their old assignments. Their contact, not knowing which current agents she can trust, turns to them, asking them to go undercover on a cruise and take out the person responsible, while she works the internal angles. Only it turns out that even after his death, there may still be ripple effects that continue to be in play, bringing danger once again to their loved ones.

Solid fun. Honestly, if this book series hasn’t been optioned to a studio yet, it’s a shame.

Paper. Library. (more…)

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl asks us to share books we’d like to re-read.

Here are ten of mine:

1. Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde (It was so long between the first and second books that my memory of the story has grown hazy. It is sitting on my coffee table waiting for me to get moving.)
2. A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas (A charming memoir to reread every few Decembers)
3. Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (I keep thinking I’ll start it in January (or maybe it really begins in March?) and carry on with a year-long readalong.)
4. Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence (See above.)
5. Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next (One of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors.)
6. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (I haven’t re-read it in more than 20 years.)
7. As You Wish by Cary Elwes (I read it in print the first time and think it would be fun to listen to it at some point.)
8. The Delicacy and Strength of Lace by Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright (I loved this slim volume of correspondence.)
9. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune (I have the sequel sitting on my coffee table and should revisit this one. I hope I love rereading it as much as I did Under the Whispering Door last year.)
10. Sorcery & Cecelia by Patrica Wrede & Caroline Stevermer (I’d like to read the rest of this series, but, again, it’s been a long time since I started it.)

How about you? What books do you want to revisit?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. One of the advantages of grocery shopping after doing an evening watering of the garden is that the shortest path between the two skirts a woodsy hill, which glitters with fireflies toward dusk.

2. I have books to trade at the Arlington library, so I head over the river to take care of that, as well as picking up summer reading prizes. While I’m walking over to the coffeehouse I like to visit nearby, I pass an evening event at the college along the way. The performers are on break, but you can make s’mores at your table, with inventive options like making them using fudge ripple cookies instead of graham crackers. So, I do, because why would you not?!

3. Rachel suggests we do dinner. Rudi finds us a handful of options, Rachel narrows it to two, and I make the final selection, which none of us has tried before. All of us are happy with our entrees, and mine makes a fine meal of leftovers one night when Rudi is out with friends.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world recently?